Lawyers for accused Jewish Community Center shooter Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. want the state to strike evidence found in his car and suppress the statements of four witnesses who say they saw him carry out the attacks on April 13, 2014.
Though Cross, a known anti-Semite who also goes by Frazier Glenn Miller, has boasted in interviews he committed the murders at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom, the motions his lawyers filed last week indicate they'll mount an aggressive defense.
In total, Cross' legal team filed 21 motions Thursday. Many standard criminal defense motions – like how jurors should be picked – but there are a few eyebrow raisers in there, too.
Eyewitness testimony
One was a motion to suppress identification. Cross' lawyers argue the state shouldn't be allowed to call four eyewitnesses who identified Cross as the shooter. At Cross' preliminary hearing two months ago, attorney Martin Warhurst grilled Mark Metcalf, Mark Brodky, James Coombes and Margaret Hunker, asking if they were certain it was his client they saw with a gun on April 13, 2014. Warhurst also quizzed Sgt. Marty Ingram of the Overland Park, Kansas, police on his department's policies for eyewitness identification of a suspect.
In their motion, Cross' legal team cited a 1967 Supreme Court case decrying the use of a "show-up" identification of one suspect over a line-up. Most of the witnesses were asked to identify Cross in the minutes after his arrest through the window of a police cruiser.
They were not brought back in to identify him a second time.
"So the first time Mr. Metcalf was asked to identify the shooter was in open court in front of the cameras after a year of exposure to the defendant's image in all manner of press with the defendant in chains and jail clothes," the motion states.
Physical evidence
Cross' lawyers also want to suppress evidence collected from the trunk of his car, including weapons that ballistics experts say fired the rounds that killed Reat Underwood, William Corporon and Terri LaManno.
They argue that the description of the vehicle in the Jewish Community Center shooting – "a white passenger car," "possibly ... a Suzuki" – was not enough for officers to make an arrest.
"Every item of physical evidence recovered from the vehicle and every observation by police officers of the contents of the vehicle must be suppressed as having flowed from the illegal arrest of the defendant and seizure of his vehicle," the motion states.
Victim impact
Also notable was a motion to bar victim impact evidence. Cross' attorneys argue that Kansas doesn't permit the admission of victim impact evidence and the families of the three victims shouldn't be allowed to testify.
Since Cross faces the death penalty, the jury could be swayed by "this dangerous category of evidence" to seek a harsher punishment, the motion argues.
Cross will appear again in court May 14. His trial is set for August.
